Re: Woo - hoo..

In article <1132733478.722437.261010@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"=?windows-1257?q?P=E7teris_Cedri=F2=F0_(Peteris_Cedrins)?="
<cedrins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Eugene Holman wrote:
> > In article <1132696182.988670.127850@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> > "=3D?windows-1257?q?P=3DE7teris_Cedri=3DF2=3DF0_(Peteris_Cedrins)?=3D"
> > <cedrins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > <important material deleted>
> > >
> > > Eugene can keep his head in the sand.
> >
> > The critical sources that you quoted were from Russia. This indicates that
> > there is some kind of serious discussion going on, and not only in
> > Russia's English-language media.
>
> Well, according to you, there was some kind of serious discussion going
> on in the USSR, which was not a closed society...

The USSR *was* a closed society, but not a completely closed society.
Debates on the virtues and problems democracy went on at various levels,
people went abroad, foreigners visited the country, and information about
other models of social and economic organization seeped into the country.
The government tried very hard to maintain a monopoly on information, but
human contacts on the grass-roots level as well the information revolution
that started in the late 1970s ensured that its efforts could not succeed,
something that the country itself conceded in the mid-1980s. The USSR was
not a static state, nor is Russia. You have to focus on evolution and not
judge a country by its worst attributes which, thank heavens, are not
necessarily permanent. A good case coiuld be made for the argument that
the United States was a severely flawed democracy until the passing of the
1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Bill that followed it:
that is to say, more than 180 years of evolution before all American
citizens were guaranteed such simple rights as the vote and unimpeded
access to the services offered by businesses serving the public.

> Why don't you peruse GDF and see how this "some kind of serious
> discussion" is going?
>
> An example --
>
> "Konstantin Krasnopolsky, Volgograd-based founder and editor-in-chief
> of the news website Gorod Geroyev, was assaulted in Moscow on November
> 10. At about 2 p.m., an unidentified man hit Mr. Krasnopolsky several
> times with a metal club on the head and face, breaking his jaw and
> giving him a basal skull fracture. The police launched a criminal
> investigation.

And you are claiming that this kind of stuff does not go on elsewhere. As
a kid, one of the first news stories I remember reacting to strongly was
the sulphuric acid blinding of labor columnist Victor Riesel
(http://dlib.nyu.edu:8083/tamwagead/servlet/SaxonServlet?source=/riesel.xml&style=/saxon01t2002.xsl&part=body).
Political parties, police forces, security services, and labor unions can
be and often are criminally corrupt in non-totalitarian societies. I'm not
saying that this is a good or normal thing, but it is a fact that we have
to live with.

> "The editor's colleagues see it as a murder attempt directly connected
> with the threats he has repeatedly received on the Internet over the
> past two months. Specifically, after Mr. Krasnopolsky posted an article
> entitled "What Kind of a Party is It, Damn!" on his website on
> September 8, someone wrote a comment advising the editor "to look out"
> and "say goodbye" to his family. Colleagues believe the threats came
> from the Volgograd branch of the United Russia Party."
>
> http://www.gdf.ru/digest/digest/digest254e.shtml#rus01

There have been many murders of outspoken journalists in Russia, but, once
again, this is not a plague that is restricted to that country.
Ultimately, it is a matter of political culture, and the word 'culture'
comes from a Latin verb that means 'to cultivate', an activity requiring
time and loving care. Decent standards of political culture cannot be
imposed over night, they evolve. Eventually, we hope, freedom of the press
will assume a form in Russia that will not constitute a threat to those
who publish articles exposing corruption and other unpleasantries.

> The "critical voices" I quoted in my previous post are saying things
> like "[o]ver the past five years, United Russia has been doing
> everything to strangle democracy in Russia by rubberstamping one
> anti-democratic bill after another," warning that Russia is stepping
> back into the Soviet era, and all you can say is that the because a few
> brave (very brave, considering the risks) intellectuals take note, not
> to worry?

Of course I worry. But I also know that you learn from mistakes. Most
Russians understand that totalitarianism is not going to get them
anywhere. On the other hand, many welcome some discipline and dedicated
butt-kicking after the chaos and corruption of the Yeltsin years, nor can
I say that I blame them.

> > My experience with Russia and Russians is that democracy as we in the West
> > understand it is not highly regarded there.
>
> My, my -- is that like "Soviet science" as opposed to "science"?

No, it's more like the totality of the country's historical experience.
For many Russians democracy, anarchy, and chaos are almost synonyms. You
can't change a national mindset in fifteen years; it will take a few
generations. Having been visiting the USSR and Russia regularly during the
past thirty-odd years, I am not disappointed by the general direction
things are going, even if I am disturbed by some trends. I am convinced
that the Russians know where they want their country to go, but they are
not sure what road to take in order to get there.

Additionally, you cannot understand the evolution of Russian democracy
without considering the evolution of American democracy, this being held
up as the paragon to emulate. The events of 9/11 and the "War on
Terrorism" that followed resulted in what many political commentators
regard as serious backtracking in American democracy, as, indeed, has the
virtural Stalinization of the Republican Party into an organization
dedicated to the welfare and interests of corporate fat cats. One of the
reasons that the evolution of Russian democcracy has stalled is that the
evolution of American democracy has stalled. Both countries are more
concerned with making money and the real or imagined threat posed by
jihadists than they are in the interests of their citizenry. There is a
currently a major crisis in world democracy, and it affects the United
States, Russia, France, and many other countries.

So, I am not as pessimistic as you are about the evolution of Russian
democracy, but I find myself more pessimistic than you are about the
short-term future of democracy as an ideal form of political organization
and civic participation in the political process.

> > On the other hand, people
> > understand that Russia will never attain the status among nations that it
> > aspires to without evolving into something approximating a Western
> > democracy. Let the debate simmer =AD that is also part of democracy.
>
> It's a-simmerin', yep -- with a lid on it. In Mari El, for example --
>
> "The president of Russia's small remote autonomous republic of Mari-El
> on the Middle Volga has employed coercive measures to stave off an
> Orange Revolution-style challenge -- an indication of public pressure
> for political change in at least one part of Russia and a measure of
> the willingness of officials to try to do whatever it takes to block
> it."
>
> [=2E..]

The bright side is that the situation in Mari El is being observed and
reported about on the ground by experts from, among other places, Finland,
Estonia, and Hungary, all of whom have more than a passing interest in the
fate of a fellow Finno-Ugric nation. During the Soviet period they would
not have been granted access to the place.

Source: http://www.mari.ee/eng/soc/polit/goble.htm

<quote>
<deletions>
Tartu, February 21 -  Russian officials are resurrecting the Soviet-era
technique of hiding ongoing repression against non-Russian ethnic groups
by publishing colorful ethnographic articles that are cleverly intended to
suggest that these communities are happy and that their situation is just
fine.

In contrast to Soviet times, however, when underground samizdat materials
from the periphery of the USSR reached the West only after many months if
at all, the Internet now allows some non-Russian groups within the
Russian Federation to get their side of the story out so quickly that
efforts by officials to cover up their actions may fail.
<deletions>
</quote>


> "The Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
> (PACE) blocked a report on the situation in Mari-El at one of its
> regular sessions, in Lisbon."
>
> This is the same PACE that sent Gyorgy Frunda here to take the side of
> those organizations the Kremlin wishes to fund (giving a new word to
> Latvian -- "frundisms"). And the argument from Moscow invariably refers
> to "double standards," of course -- i.e., there ought to be equivalency
> between not having bilingual street signs and going a-slaughtering.
>
> > Coming up from that sand for air,
> > Eugene Holman
>
> I didn't notice.

I did. I would rather see Russia evolve towards democracy on training
wheels at the risk of occasionally scarring its virtual knees and kicking
the virtual bicycle in frustration, than see a model of democracy tailor
fit for some other country imposed on it. Having had recent experience
with seven decades of totalitarianism, the Russians are not likely back
into it again easily. On the other hand, having only had a decade and a
half of experience with democracy, and precious few precendents of their
own to build on, I have no illusions about well functioning organizations
and systems of checks and balances automatically springing up and
functioning flawlessly.

Regards,
Eugene Holman
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Woo - hoo..
    ... >> The critical sources that you quoted were from Russia. ... Debates on the virtues and problems democracy went on at various levels, ... other models of social and economic organization seeped into the country. ... You have to focus on evolution and not ...
    (soc.culture.baltics)
  • Now what is Mr. Put_a_shine_on_shit
    ... FIGURES OF THE WEST IS A NEW SIGN OF HOPE FOR US IN RUSSIA. ... BOMBS OF DEMOCRACY, INFORMATION, TRUTH, SOLIDARITY AND ... Putin must leave - more and more people in our country begin to repeat ... Putin's regime - maybe not nazi yet, but already quite fascist - must ...
    (talk.politics.soviet)
  • Re: Ol Vlad, I gather, would like...
    ... A separate interesting point is what the hell Dick is doing in Europe ... ""Democracy is like riding a bicycle," ... Cheney warned that if Moscow ... Russia Backpedalling? ...
    (soc.culture.baltics)
  • Re: Ol Vlad, I gather, would like...
    ... I am sure the poeple of Russia and belarus ... did they decide to murder the Belarusan democracy leader Milenkevich,a ... And, in general, where on the list is Belarus in relation to, say, ... Cheney warned that if Moscow ...
    (soc.culture.baltics)
  • Re: A Crushing Victory
    ... expecially if they talk in terms of democracy or society ... supervisions and it avoids criticizing the government or the president. ... well as over the Internet, and the Internet, uncensored in Russia, has ... surprising in a country as vast as Russia. ...
    (soc.culture.baltics)